Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? asked Alice.
That depends a great deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat.
It doesn't much matter where-- said Alice.
Then it doesn't matter which way you go, said the Cat.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
As our calendar pages flip resolutely from December 2009 to January 2010, we are confronted with a choice. A Choice. Continue business as usual. A just-another-day-in-a-long-line-of-days kind of thing (as the old saw goes: many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.) And the alternative? Use this admittedly random moment as a metaphor for the Fork in the Road.
Sure, in some ways it's just another day. But as a society, we mark the day in red (it's a national holiday, after all), give it a new number. We clean it up, brush it off, and call it 01.01. Since it's all dressed up in Red Letters, why not take it out on the town?
Named for the Roman god Janus--the god of portals, of beginnings and ends, a double-headed deity who looked over one shoulder into history, and forward to the future--much as we all do, most of the time. One of Janus' faces turned westward as the day ended, another watched dawn break in the East. And in his hand, he held a key. Symbolizing our perch on the threshold, the key is our capacity to unlock a door to the future, to make ourselves at home there.
New Year's Day. 01.01. Spotless as a fresh sheet of paper, begging for inscription. Vivid as a heartbeat on a first date. Do something special with it: decide to call it a Fork in the Road, and we offer ourselves an opportunity. A Choice.
Teetering unsteadily at this threshold, we peer down the shadowy alleys of foregone days and their foregone conclusions, and into the twinkling white light of the future--a city of promise.
To map our path, like the double-headed god, we must be of two minds: embrace our subjective desires, while simultaneously examining our goals. Employing a scathing objectivity, we consider where we are, where we'd like to go, and how we might get there. Determining your future isn't exactly MapQuest material, is it?
Who do you want to be? What do you want? How much do you want it? Gaze deeply within the crystal ball of your own mind, so that you may create not only a future perfect, but divine.
And just so you know, Janus doesn't carry the key. You hold that key in your own hand.
PS. If by chance you missed the magic of 01.01, don't despair: the future begins again each day, each day.
